1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an optical communications cable with a tensile core and a plastic body (chambered body) that surrounds the core and has a number of closed chambers for accommodating one or more optical fibers, the outer boundary of the chambered body having grooves with locations of reduced wall thickness serving as rated break points or bead-like bulges forming the parts of the chamber outer walls.
2. Description of the Related Art
German Patent No. 25 23 735 discloses a communications cable in which a central core is surrounded by a plastic body that has a number of channels (chambers) for accommodating optical fibers. Tear strings for opening the chambers are provided in the wall bounding the chambers on their outwardly directed side.
EP-A1 0 169 647 discloses an optical cable in which the covers sealing the chambers are provided with a tear string. This tear string can have the form of a region with reduced wall thickness, and thus be peeled off. In this process, in all cases only a narrow subregion of the entire chamber cover is exposed, so that only a narrow slit is available for extracting optical fibers. Such a narrow slit does not facilitate the required ease of access nor, above all, the gripability of the optical fibers accommodated in the chamber interior.
EP-A1 0 169 647 exhibits depressions which serve as rated break points and are directed towards the bearing wall parts of the core, that is to say not towards the chamber opening. As a consequence, an unnecessarily large amount of material is removed during peeling of a part of the outer sheath situated between two rated break points. In this arrangement,two consecutive chambers have only one common rated break point. This arrangement presupposes that an outer layer (for example, a sheath) of material contrasting with the chambered body is provided.